SOME time this year, Australian music buyers will spend more to listen to music by downloading or streaming than by buying physical recordings.

That day of the crossover - for both dollar value and the amount of music sold - might have already passed.

The Australian Recording Industry Association collects figures from its member record companies on wholesale sales and digital downloads.

Recorded music sales.

Yet the ARIA statistics reveal one resilient, albeit tiny, sector of physical music sales - vinyl records. The number of vinyl albums sold in Australia topped 65,000 last year, up from 18,000 only four years before. The figures do not include the unsigned bands and small record labels that have their records pressed here and overseas. CD sales in Australia reached 30 million last year - down from almost 50 million four years before.

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Vinyl is having its second coming.

Chris Moss, the owner of Australia's last operating vinyl record pressing plant, Zenith Records, is so convinced of vinyl's future, he runs four factories here and overseas.

Zenith Records and the return of vinyl

''The vinyl record had a bit of a mini-boom some years ago with the DJ scene, as well as the remixes for dance music as well as demand for metal and hip-hop,'' Moss says.

He reckons the worldwide vinyl market last year was about 45 million records, about 7.5 per cent of the size of the estimated 600 million CD market, which is falling steeply. Most vinyl sales last year were in the US, the world's second-largest music market after Japan. Japan itself is a curious music market, because vinyl recordings are not as popular as music cassette recordings, which represent about 1 per cent of the physical recordings sold.

The Zenith Records factory in Sunshine handles mostly small-run pressings for independent bands and musicians, who want something special on their merchandise table at their gigs. The seven-inch press is the busiest, because of how Zenith structures its pricing.

Now, the return of vinyl music is also evident in hi-fi stores.

The repair technician and co-owner at Thornbury Records, Clayton Pegus, says his workshop is frequently overflowing with turntables booked in for services.

Melbourne hi-fi equipment importer Synergy Audio Visual handles the distinctive Rega hi-fi equipment, designed and built in England since 1973.

Synergy Audio Visual managing director Phil Sawyer says some of the Rega turntables, which range in price from $599 for the RP1 turntable to $5499 for the P9, are so popular that buyers on occasions have to join waiting lists.

He says turntables have always been popular with audiophiles - those who have an interest in the best-possible reproduction of recorded entertainment - but music lovers are also beginning to understand vinyl again.

He says the appeal of vinyl to buyers in the 25-35 age group marks a big change in music-listening habits.

''They enjoy the sound, the time spent in playing a record and the interaction with the music and the album art,'' Sawyer says.

For more than a decade, the manufacturers of amplifiers and receivers did not include phono inputs on the back of their equipment. An inexpensive phono pre-amplifier can easily hook up a turntable to an amplifier built in the late 1990s or early 2000s, when digital inputs were catered for. Some new turntables come with pre-amplifiers built in.

Sawyer says anybody spending more than $300 or $400 on a turntable would consider investing in a quality phono pre-amp to achieve the best sound.

The prerequisite for setting up a record store, local musicians Pegus and Megan Sheehy say, is an overwhelming love of the music and all that surrounds it.

They began Thornbury Records last year without any music or hi-fi retail experience. Pegus confesses to a background in music production and engineering as well as electronics repair and Sheehy has worked as a museum curator and historian.

This doesn't mean they sell second-hand vinyl records. Their aims could easily be a motto for a greengrocer. ''We wanted to create a store with a focus on new vinyl and local produce,'' Pegus says.

''There are so many awesome second-hand stores out there already, and they are great places to pick up classic and rare records, but from a musician's perspective, used vinyl doesn't really do much to promote the creation of new music.''

Their own musical careers, now with heavy rock or psychedelic rock-pop bands, defy the pigeonholes that would be ascribed to them in an iTunes genre column. Sheehy plays bass and sings for Matt Sonic & the High Times. Pegus is a bass player for Heavy Beach, which just released a first single, available as a name-your-own-price digital download on Bandcamp.

Both have played in bands that have released vinyl records.

Thornbury Records is also gaining a reputation for cost-effective repairs. Pegus says they have serviced more than 200 turntables since they opened last year and they keep service fees low. Fitting a new belt costs as little as $15.

''Our main business is selling vinyl records,'' Pegus says. ''But without working turntables out there, we wouldn't have anyone to sell to.''

Pegus says belt-driven turntables from the 1970s and 1980s are simple, reliable machines and relatively easy to fix. ''There are no electronics between the wires on the headshell and the wires that come out the back, and usually nothing between the power point and the motor.''

Pegus says there are many opinions on how long a stylus should last. ''Waiting for your turntable to sound bad before replacing the stylus isn't a good indicator,'' he says. So, in short, if you don't know how old it is, get it serviced.

Thornbury Records also helps broker vinyl pressing for local bands. It has struck an agency agreement with United Record Pressing in Nashville.

Zenith Records' Moss can also arrange overseas plants to press vinyl for local buyers, should they need special orders such as 10-inch vinyl or picture discs.

He has invested in three other vinyl-pressing factories - Alpha Vinyl Record Pressing in Florida, Only Vinyl in London and Phonopress on the outskirts of Milan.

Pegus says 10-inch records are surprisingly popular, although most people buy 12-inch LPs. ''It's all about listening to an album from start to finish,'' he says.

57 comments

No comparison to the latter would ever have any real meaning, as cd's are actually part of this 'digital revolution'.

The analog warmth of vinyl (and tape) will never be outdated by this sterile, digital noise.

If you understand what digital really is, you'd never by a cd or mp3.

Commenter

Kel

Date and time

June 07, 2012, 7:17AM

This is an incorrect assumption. The analog nature of vinyl (and tapes for that matter) can easily be mimicked with filters on digital recordings that artificially degrade the sound. I agree that the 44k sampling rate does lose some of the audible quality in comparison to a vinyl (even though the human ear isn't technically able to hear frequencies this high, there are effects to harmonics causing lower frequencies to be distorted), after one playing of the record, you have already lost more of the sound then the CD had to begin with due to the flattening of the physical media as the diamond head moves over the surface. I think in future, when higher bitrate compressed HD audio is commonplace, the digital media will start out with better fidelity then vinyl, and the advantage is that it will retain this no matter how many times it's played.

Commenter

Another opinion.

Date and time

June 07, 2012, 9:22AM

I've never needed convincing that analogue recordings, pressed on vinyl and replayed on turntable based Hi-Fi systems have a realistic, natural sound that digital recordings simply cannot reproduce.

But what to make of the new vinyl?

My first and only question would be is the new recording analog or digital?

If you don't get that, then you don't get the essential difference between digital and analogue technologies.And you will never understand true Hi-Fi.

Commenter

analog in grafton

Date and time

June 07, 2012, 8:15AM

from what I can recall, digital recording then presssed on vinyl was around before CD's. Fleetwood Mac Tusk comes to mind.

Commenter

stephen

Location

yarraville

Date and time

June 07, 2012, 8:44AM

Well said "analog in grafton". While initial recordings of CDs were rather clinical and advocated a new clean sound, they sounded thin and full of treble. Subsequent remastering techniques have helped CD recordings sound better though an argument can be made that "Loudness Wars" only resulted in louder digital recordings. Mastering and engineering plays a significant part in all of this whichever medium you choose. I own old and new vinyl and digitally mastered vinyl sounds as good as its CD recording not forgetting that equipment plays a huge part in what you listen to. The River In Reverse, recorded by Elvis Costello and Allen Toussaint is as warm or warmer on CD than any vinyl recording I own.Part of this debate that was missed is the new Hi-Res music files which provide for studio standard music at bit rates of 88.2 kHz/24 bit and 96 kHz/24 and even up to 192 kHz/24. Buy a cheapish DAC and listen to music using your computer.

Commenter

Nicko

Date and time

June 07, 2012, 9:01AM

Very true and that's what a lot of people don't understand. So much music these days is produced/recorded on DAW's and/or mastered using digital equipment. The result is a digital file which is then pressed onto and sold as vinyl/cd ain addition to being sold as an MP3.

If you can honestly say that you think a digitally produced/mastered track sound better on vinyl then you're kidding yourself.

Commenter

Mike of Melb

Date and time

June 07, 2012, 9:02AM

It might be news to you then that by far most vinyl records (unless cut from a tape master with delay heads) actually undergo a digital delay line at the cutting stage, for the lathe computer to pre-read the signal to maximize the groove width/depth.

Cutting vinyl from 24 bit full res sources can still sound excellent. All else is subjective.- mastering engineer.

Commenter

Adam Dempsey

Location

Melbourne

Date and time

June 07, 2012, 9:55AM

So why is it when I do an A/B comparison of a digital recording, Bjork's Homogenic, my vinyl version absolutely destroys the CD in every way? Hi Res files are getting close, but I still believe we are about 5-10 years before that sort of technology becomes commercially available.

Commenter

Ilovefooty

Date and time

June 07, 2012, 10:59AM

I love my vinyls but it's getting hard to get good records from the op-shops and Savers. Everyone seems to be looking at them now. I did get a rare Australian only edition 1965 Out of Our Heads Rolling Stones for $1.